Behind

• Designer: Cedric Millet
• Publisher: KYF edition
• Players: 1+
• Age: 10+
• Time: 45-90 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

 Analyze, assemble, admire — in Behind, you’ll find three scenes to solve, each with its own unique mechanisms and reflection. You want to observe the tiles laid out in front of you, then assemble them logically and turn them over to admire the result on the reverse! Six clue cards are available for each scene and should be turned over in numerical order. The scenes in the box are:

• The Theft: A theft has taken place in a city museum. The investigation is moving fast! (Illustrated by Pierô – 56 tiles)
  • The Professor: Two scientists experiment with an incredible machine. (Scripted and illustrated by Martin Vidberg – 54 tiles)
  • Imhotep: A bas-relief of strange hieroglyphs is said to open a door to the cosmos. (Illustrated by Maud Chalmel – 70 tiles)

Once you’ve reconstructed the picture, you can read all of the clues at your disposal, even if none of them were turned over while you were solving the picture. They’ll help you validate your thinking and confirm your thoughts! Finally, flip each tile to reveal the final image…

To play, take one of the three cases out of the box, and lay out all the tiles in the box, making sure to not flip them over.  Put the hint cards aside in case you need them.  Read the briefing found on the inside cover of the box that you opened – this will give you clues to the story.

The players now must work together to place all the tiles into a single rectangle. There is only one correct solution.  Players may need to rely upon art continuity in some areas and in other cases may need to use their understanding of the scenario.

If the group gets stuck for awhile (the rules suggest ten minutes!), they flip over the lowest numbered hint card to see if this helps.  They keep going until they reach a hint card that helps them.  

Once all the tiles are assembled, you check to see if you have assembled it correctly.  Read the unread hint cards to make sure you have not made any mistakes.  Then flip the tiles over laterally to see the full scene.  If you have done it correctly, the scene will appear complete.  There really is no score – it’s just whether you get the right scene to be revealed or not.

My thoughts on the game

So like with many of these puzzle-y games, it’s hard to write a comprehensive review because I don’t want to give any spoilers away!  You’ll only have one chance to play each of the scenarios, so I don’t want to take away even a small part of that experience.

I did manage to get a copy of the demo package used at the convention booth – this is a smaller puzzle – which gives people a way to try out the game system without burning through one of the three cases in the box.

In general – you have to figure out the right way to put all the squares together. Some of the connections will be easy and obvious, and some will take a bit of thought to figure out the artist’s logic.

I’ve played the game mostly in a group of three players, and it was a good fit.  There were enough things to do to keep everyone busy during the whole solving period – but also enough different brains coming up with different theories on how to arrange the tiles.  

The clues are well done, and we found it fun to even go through the clues after looking at the solved back side of the tiles to see whether we discovered things in the same order that they expected us to do so!  Interestingly, in all cases, we always figured out the piece on the final clue card earlier in the process than expected – thus getting stuck on an “easier” piece of the puzzle!

The three puzzles vary a bit in difficulty – with the easiest one taking about 20 minutes for us to solve, and 52 minutes for the most difficult.  While it’s true that you can only play these puzzles once (as you’re surely going to remember the story/art) – it’s a good two hour pastime in a small box that you can pass along to someone else when you’re done.

I’m hoping there are more releases in this series as I’ve really liked these first three cases.  

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale Y, John P
• Neutral.
• Not for me…